Review of the N.O.W. RPG

The What's Old Is New role-playing system is based around three core rulebooks - O.L.D., which covers gaming in a fantasy setting, N.O.W.. which concentrates on gaming in the contemporary period and N.E.W., which is aimed at sci-fi gaming. All three rulebooks are compatible with one another. O.L.D., N.O.W. and N.E.W. use the same system.  Each book is different, however, containing different careers/traditions, equipment, races/species, monsters, and so on.  Additionally each has chapters useful to it - O.L.D. has a magic system, herbalism and alchemy, stronghold building rules, a chapter on warfare, wilderness travel; N.E.W. has comprehensive starship construction rules, space combat, cybernetics and psionics, and N.O.W. has rules for super vehicles and martial arts. The W.O.I.N. rules use a life-path system for character generation, six-sided dice pools for task resolution, a free-form verb-noun magic system, and hex-based starship combat rules influenced by the best that the 1980s had to offer but updated to modern sensibilities. The O.L.D. and N.E.W. rulebooks have been available for some time now but it was only recently that the N.O.W. rulebook was released. Suffice to say, it was very high on my shopping list and having recently finished reading it I want to give an in-depth review of what it contains. Using this book, you can run a campaign focused on settings and challenges that reflect the action movie genre. If you've ever watched an amazing action film and wanted to role-play in that setting, or in a setting with a similar feel and some of the same assumptions, the rules in this book are here to help you run a game inspired by your favourite adrenaline junkie flicks and TV shows. It describes how to create characters, adjudicate the game, run combat, and design settings and adventures, among other things. The book is divided into four main chapters.
• 1: Action Careers. The first section of the book deals with character creation. It takes you through the process of generating new player characters from start to finish, including attributes, heritage, careers, skills, exploits and more. It also includes information on Chi.
• 2: Modern Equipment. In this section, you’ll find rules for buying, customizing, building, and ultimately using equipment of all kinds—from exploding pens to talking super-cars to tricked out 18-wheelers.
• 3: Modern Core. This section describes how to run a game of N.O.W. It covers the core game mechanics, including attribute checks and countdown pools, and the combat rules, along with details on the environment, objects, and movement. Included are rules on how to pit vehicles against each other in combat.
• 4: Modern Worlds. The final section of the book contains guidelines for designing your own setting, heritages, careers, combat locales, and enemies. It also contains rules for creating, joining, and running organizations. It is a games master’s toolkit for campaign and adventure design.

Action Careers
Character generation follows the same format as used in O.L.D. and N.E.W. in that a character has 10 attributes - STRENGTH, AGILITY, ENDURANCE, INTUITION, LOGIC, WILLPOWER, CHARISMA, LUCK, REPUTATION and CHI. Note that in N.O.W., the CHI attribute replaces the MAGIC attribute in O.L.D. and the PSIONICS attribute in N.E.W. CHI represents an inner force of will and power, often utilised by martial artists to accomplish incredible supernatural things, like running on water, levitating or healing through meditation. In N.O.W. all characters are human (alien races don't exist unless you specifically want to include them). However, humans can be one of four heritages, which all have different starting attributes. Humans are the normal default choice. Other heritages are Chosen (better in some way than a human, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter or Thomas "Neo" Anderson), Mutant (mutated in some way like any of the characters from the X-Men comics) or Augmented (enhanced by cybernetics like Steve Austin, James "Bucky" Barnes or Alex "Robocop" Murphy). Mutants can choose either two minor mutations or one major mutation. These mutant powers are designed for "street level" powers not major super-powers. Characters then choose a number of starting careers (usually five) to determine their grade. Skills and exploits are also chosen according to the career choices. The list of origin careers (everyone must start with an origin career) and further careers is very comprehensive and provides the greatest amount of options than either of the other two rulebooks. More choice is always a good thing, in my opinion.
Martial arts are covered in great detail and this particular section of the book was a major highlight for me, especially as two styles in particular, Gun Fu and Gun Kata, which appeared in one of my favourite action movies, Equilibrium, were included.


Modern Equipment
This chapter gives you information and stats for weapons, armour, general gear, vehicles and gadgets. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the section on weapons also covers the Wild West of the 19th Century and World War 2. Obviously, not every gun or vehicle, for example, could be included but even so, the lists are very comprehensive and should cover most eventualities. What I particularly love about this section is that just about every item featured is illustrated. This was particularly useful for me. Whilst I'm pretty good at gun recognition, I'm very poor at vehicle recognition. I tend to recognise cars by their colours rather than their make or model! By the way, I am not a driver, and at my age, I don't want to be.


Modern Core
This is the section of the rulebook that tells you how to play the game. To that end, you will find the following information within this chapter.
The Attribute Check. This is the core mechanic of the game. Almost everything revolves around the attribute check. When you know how to make and adjudicate an attribute check, you know how to play most of the game. This section includes guidelines on assigning difficulty benchmarks, running opposed or extended tasks, and details some common situations including medicine, chases, scanning, engineering, and more.
Countdowns. A countdown is a special type of dice pool that depletes as time passes. Countdowns depict a race against time, such as a ticking bomb or a disease, when the characters don’t know exactly how much time remains before disaster strikes. Countdowns are used to create suspense and tension.
The Role of Luck. Luck is a special attribute that provides characters with a replenishing dice pool that can be drawn upon as needed to assist in various tasks.
Combat. Combat is a common occurrence in the game, whether with assault rifles at range or duels between ninjas and secret agents. This section tells you how to move, attack, and perform other actions in combat. Combat in W.O.I.N. is a tactical skirmish system where position and cover are very important.
Injury & Death. It’s a dangerous world, and harm can befall any character. Such harm takes three forms: Health damage, status tracks, and diseases.
Objects. This part of the book explains how objects can be broken or damaged, how to break down a door, or how much damage an office desk can take. It details various materials, from wood to steel.
The Environment. The environment affects many things. Variations in gravity, severe weather, slippery surfaces, and many other environmental traits can be applied to areas both big and small. Fighting in the middle of a self-destructing villain’s lair as fire rages all around is very different to fighting on a frozen wasteland in the midst of a blizzard.

Modern Worlds
This is the chapter for a games master to design such diverse things as the setting of the game, settlements and countries, agents and organisations, designing new heritages, careers and foes, and finally, creating campaigns. The GM must design the world, its inhabitants, its power structures and villains, and more. Every place the player characters go, every non-player character (NPC) they meet, every creature they track, every combat encounter— it all begins with the GM. That sounds like a monstrous task—and in some ways it is. However, the GM does not need to create an entire world at once. It is often enough to simply sketch a broad outline of the setting in a few paragraphs, and some detail around the PCs’ starting circumstances, and expand from there as and when it’s needed. You may know there’s a militant group of drug-abusing occultists called the Crimson Sparrows, but you don’t need to flesh out all the fine details until the player characters stumble onto one of the organization’s operations (or until you run them afoul of one!) A campaign set in the “real world” has many advantages. The geography and general political status is already set, absent any additional setting elements you choose to add. You can grab an atlas, or a 1980s shopping catalogue, and find much of the work done for you. Of course, you need to develop the plots, the power groups, the mastermind NPCs, and the secret organizations, but the world itself is already there.

Appendixes 
The rulebook is nicely rounded off with a series of three useful appendixes. First up are six pre-generated player characters who belong to the Alpha Squad. You don't have to use them but if you want to dive straight into the rules they'll save you a lot of time from designing your own PCs. The next appendix includes a sizeable selection of beasts, minions and skilled enemies which you can use in your game. Finally, is a short scenario designed for starting characters, which you can play as a one-off or develop into an on-going campaign.

Conclusion
Unlike O.L.D. and N.E.W. this was not written by the prolific Russell Morrissey but instead was penned by Mike Myler. I have to say he has done first class job on this book. Science fiction is my favourite genre to game in, but contemporary gaming is my second favourite genre, so I can certainly see myself using this rulebook a lot. Possible campaigns that I'd like to run include -

• One centred around Vampirella, my favourite comic book super-heroine, although she would be incredibly powerful using these rules. That said, she would be going up against very powerful enemies like demons, necromancers or vampires.
• Staying with the horror theme, a new zombie apocalypse campaign, featuring my alter ego, Vampifan. I ran two previous campaigns, featuring Vampifan, using the All Things Zombie rules by Two Hours Wargames in the past, but would have loved to have added more role-playing elements to what were essentially skirmish wargames. N.O.W. would fit the bill perfectly.
• A very silly, fun campaign featuring the notorious schoolgirls from St. Trinian's. That would be such a change of pace for me, but it certainly has appeal as I love the St. Trinian's films.
• A detective campaign, possibly based upon such TV series like The Sweeney or Life on Mars or the Dirty Harry films, or the John Woo Hong Kong action movies such as Hard Boiled. I'm a huge fan of all of them.

Too many choices, too little time! As readers of this blog will know, I'm a huge fan of the W.O.I.N. rules and so I can only give this rulebook my  highest recommendations. It did have a lot to live up to but it more than fulfilled my expectations for it. The martial arts rules and vehicle combat rules, made it more than worth its asking price. One of the things I love the most about O.L.D., N.O.W. and N.E.W. is that they are not tied to any one particular setting. As games master, you have full control of how and where you want to set your games. This gives you an incredible amount of freedom to create just the game you want to run. These books give you the tools to do so, whether you're converting an existing setting or coming up with something new and unique.
You can buy the N.O.W. rulebook from Amazon UK in paperback format for £30.04, but I splashed out and went for the hardback version from RPG Now where it cost just £38.43 and I got the PDF version thrown in for free. RRP for the hardback version is about £55.00. Result!
2018 is turning out to be a great year for W.O.I.N. fans, like myself. We have already seen the release of excellent supplements like Xenomorphs, The Holds of Vendalyr and The Starship Recognition Manual as well as the N.O.W. rulebook, but in less than two week's time there is the launch of the Kickstarter for Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD, along with The Robot Wars supplement and Judge Dredd Games Master's Screen. Happy days! 😁